The two also rans in the mobile race, Intel and Microsoft are teaming up to improve their market position.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone OSes worked only with ARM-based processors from Qualcomm and while Windows 10 works on ARM systems, compatibility with Intel x86 chips means that it does not have to.

It looks like the Windows 10 mobile OS will run on handsets and so-called phablets powered by Intel’s upcoming Atom X3 chips, code-named Sofia, announced by the chip maker at the Mobile World Congress trade show.

Devices with the X3 chips will be priced from under $75 to $249. The X3 chips will also be offered in Android handsets. Windows Phone hasn’t taken the smartphone market by storm, going into just 34.9 million handsets, amounting to a market share of just 2.7 percent, in 2014. Mind you Intel chips did not do that well in the mobile world either.

However Intel thinks that Windows mobile adoption will increase and it is likely that a WinTel alliance might help Chipzilla again. It’s not yet known which vendors will use Intel chips in Windows 10 smartphones. The first dual-core Atom X3 chips will be in 3G smartphones in the first quarter of the year, and quad-core X3 chips with LTE are coming in the second half.

The graphics core in X3 is based on years-old ARM technology called Mali, which Intel obtained with the acquisition of Infineon wireless. Intel has partnered with Chinese chip maker Rockchip to design some of the X3 chips.

Asus is the only big-name vendor that will sell devices with Atom X3 chips. Intel is leaning on China device makers to develop products, much like it did with tablets.

After a slump in the use of Windows XP, it appears that some daft people are re-installing it, even as they walk away from Windows 7.

Statcounter has Windows 7 dipping a little to 54.13 per cent and Netmarketshare has it up 0.07 per cent to 55.99 per cent of detected desktops. Both outfits have Windows 7 below highs recorded in 2014. Windows 8.1 is up from 10.04 per cent in January to 10.49 per cent in February on Netmarketshare's numbers, and from 14.27 per cent to 14.78 per cent according to Statcounter.

However what is alarming is that Windows XP use is starting to increase again – making it the herpes of operating systems. Statcounter had it up from 11.99 per cent to 12.23 percent. Netmarketshare has it edging up from 18.93 per cent to 19.15 per cent.

Those figures have Windows XP growing only a little more slowly than Windows 8.1! This is based on the traffic as it hits web servers. It is possible that someone is building banks of old XP machines to hit internet websites, but surely there are better ways to do that.

Samsung has carried out its purge of in-house apps on the Galaxy S6 and included some of Microsoft's software. Both the S6 and S6 edge will ship with a "Microsoft Apps" folder that currently includes OneDrive, OneNote and Skype.

It does not seem that Samsung has extended this offer to Office, but who the hell wants office on a mobile phone anyway? More useful is the 115GB of free OneDrive cloud storage for two years. This means you can snap your pictures and store them on the cloud.

All this appears to be the direct result of Microsoft and Samsung calling a truce in their Android royalty dispute.

Both sides win really. Microsoft's services get a lot more exposure now that they are included in phone bundles rather than having to be searched.

Software giant Microsoft might be able to resolve a staff shortage in doctors and nurses with AI.

Silicon Valley-based Sense.ly is working to bring a human face to telemedicine using Redmond's Kinect-powered ‘nurse avatar.’

This can provide patient monitoring and follow-up care. Apparently it talks with patients in an incredibly lifelike manner. Probably because they have access to a patient’s records and asks appropriate questions related directly to the patient’s past history or present complaints.

The Kinect for Windows Team said the AI nurse had a pleasant, caring demeanor that puts patients at ease.

San Mateo Medical Center is one of several major hospitals recently added the Microsoft gear to its staff and found that value of such solutions in handling patients who suffer from long-term conditions that require frequent monitoring, such high blood pressure or diabetes”.

Patients did not have to wait in line to see a doctor or nurse.

The Kinect-based solution can be installed in a patient’s home or in a local clinic. Not to mention, some sick people may avoid monitoring their health due to long waits and inflexible office-hours;

Healthcare professionals will be able to focus on the truly sick, leaving the more trivial or routine things to the non-human.

DirectX 12 looks set to bring Nvidia and AMD together, in a way that neither will be particularly happy about.

According to Toms Hardware one of the unexpected features of DirectX 12 is the ability to use Nvidia GPUs alongside AMD GPUs in multi-card configurations.

This is because DirectX 12 operates at a lower level than previous versions of the API it is able to treat all available video resources as one unit. Card model and brand makes no difference to a machine running DX12.

This could mean that the days of PC gamers having to decide between AMD or Nvidia could be over and they can pick their referred hardware from both companies and enjoy the best of both worlds. They will also be able to mix old and new cards.

However there might be a few problems with all this. Rather than worrying about your hardware optimization software developers will have to be on the ball to make sure their products work.

More hardware options means more potential configurations that games need to run on, and that could cause headaches for smaller studios.

Despite some hints that Microsoft may have green lighted a new Banjo Kazooie game at Rare, some Rare refugees have gotten together to form a new studio.

The Rare refugee studio is called Playtronic Games and of course it is in the UK.

From what we have been able to gather Playtronic is hard at work on the spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie. There are still a lot of unknowns like besides it being released on Steam Early Access, we don't know for which consoles they will be targeting. However, they would like to push for the Wii U if the fans indicate their interest.

Despite an exhaustive examination of their new website, there just isn't much to tell. We wonder if the indie developer will move to a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project or if they will self-fund? Will Playtronic stay Indie or will they be working with some sort of a publishing arrangement that will help fund the project. A lot more questions than answers, we have to wonder when we will hear the plan.

As most who have an Xbox One know, taking a screenshot is almost impossible. It continues to be the most requested feature that users want added to the Xbox One and Microsoft knows it.

The Xbox One OS developers know that this is a must have missing feature and according to recent accounts they are working on resolving the issue for an upcoming update. Apparently they must be getting close as Xbox head-honcho Phil Spencer tweeted out that he has been playing with the screenshot feature and it must be close to getting released.

While Spencer gave no indication of a timeline or when we might see it, the fact that they have it working on the Xbox Dev Kit pretty well has to be a good sign. We have to believe that it will be in one of the updates just ahead in the near future.

Office is a very important product for Microsoft and the company doesn't plan to abandon the desktop version anytime soon.

These new desktop versions are touch optimized and will end up as part future Office 365 releases, so you will need some kind of subscription for it. We have mentioned that Windows 10 Preview from January just got Word, Excel and PowerPoint Previews. They are available for your testing pleasure under Windows 10.

Desktop / Notebook lovers and people who actually want and need to write essays, articles, reports, will want the real thing, and the next office for desktop iteration is called Office 2016.

Microsoft has officially confirmed that the new version is to be expected in the second half of 2016 and that the beta should come out soon. The second half of 2016 is the general availability date.

Office 2016 is optimized for standard keyboard and mouse input on your desktop and notebook, but Microsoft didn’t talk about touch input.

Office 2013 was an all-connected office package, and supported could storage and sharing. We are sure that 2016 will continue down that path. It will be interesting to learn if you will need an Office 365 license to work on your office files on tablets and phones in case you own Office 2016.

This is of course to be expected, since the Windows Phone platform has strict hardware guidelines and relies exclusively on Qualcomm silicon.

However, Kokkonen did not talk about any specific products. The first batch of Windows 10 phones should come sooner rather than later, since it’s been a while since Microsoft’s mobile OS was overhauled.

Windows Phone 8.1 devices rely on 32-bit Qualcomm processors, so the Snapdragon 810 would be the first 64-bit processor used in a Windows mobile.

A number of sources are whispering that both Microsoft and Sony have committed to upgrading their consoles to add 4K (Ultra HD) in an expected refresh to both consoles later this year.

The refresh would add the components necessary to deliver 4K video playback.

So far Sony has expressed that they would like to support 4K and Microsoft has commented that it is considering it. Still the question remains on what kind of 4K video playback would the console makers support? Would it be limited to streaming or does this suggest that a new drive would be used in the consoles that would support 4K Blu-ray disc playback?

Considering that we already know that 4K Blu-ray is coming in late 2015, the real question is how they are going to expand the format to allow for larger disc capacity. There has been talk of a 66GB or 100GB disc capacity expansion that last we heard was undergoing a study. We have also heard that the possibility for triple layer Blu-ray discs also is possibility, but difficult to replicate and you need a drive that is able to read triple layer Blu-ray discs.

Whatever the outcome, we are not so sure that it will help the adoption of 4K TVs. This method didn't really help 3D that much and we don't think it is going to make people want to run out and buy a 4K TV when many of them just upgraded to HDTV in the last couple of years.

It seems to use that the one to have the potential to be hurt the most are the early adopters who already purchased a Xbox One or PS4 without 4K support. No matter how you slice it, the early adopters look to get the shaft on this deal unless you truly don't care about 4K support over the long haul.